if an asteroid 6 miles wide was coming right for us...

[brainhulk]

How many nukes would it take to blow it up? Do we really need Bruce Willis and his drill?

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

We'd be fudged regardless. Nuking it would do no good.

 

[highland145]

goatse it.

 

[Kaido]

We'd be fudged regardless. Nuking it would do no good.

When the aliens find our scarred planet millions of years later, all they'll have to clue them in will be the millions of Instagram pictures taken of the asteroid hitting the atmosphere

 

[swanysto]

I believe a nuclear bomb can do serious damage up to 10 miles in diameter. That is just blast strength. I would assume one would break it up pretty well. However, the pieces it creates could still do some decent damage.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

I believe a nuclear bomb can do serious damage up to 10 miles in diameter. That is just blast strength. I would assume one would break it up pretty well. However, the pieces it creates could still do some decent damage.

So now we have 100+ football field sized meteors heading towards earth?

 

[SaurusX]

So now we have 100+ football field sized meteors heading towards earth?

Or maybe we'd have a billion baseball sized meteors. Those would be much more manageable and create quite the light show.

 

[swanysto]

So now we have 100+ football field sized meteors heading towards earth?

I was not very good at physics, so I can neither confirm or deny that. I would think the blast would knock some of the meteor off the path, I would think that some of it would still hit. In my mind, when the bomb hit, I would think the explosion would cause pieces to go in every direction. Thus the damage would be less. Of course this is all in my mind, so whether it is realistic or not would have to be proven by someone with more knowledge of stuff like this.

 

[Pardus]

1.

 

[marvdmartian]

Effectiveness of a nuke would depend upon too many variables to give even a SWAG (Scientific Wild Ass Guess) answer.

1. velocity of asteroid? fast moving makes a much more difficult target
2. material it's made of? silicone based will break up easier than iron based
3. yield of the nuke? remember, most ICBM's are tipped with MIRV's, multiple independent re-entry vehicles. In other words, multiple smaller nukes, versus one humungous Tsar Bomba style 50 megaton yield warhead.
4. proximity fuse, or penetrating tip? (i.e.-bunker buster) Proximity would be an easier "hit", but would likely be less effective at breaking it up. Penetration would be much more difficult, but would concentrate more of the blast inward, for a more likely break-up of the rock.

This is just what I came up with, off the cuff. I'm sure that there are many more variables that would make a difference too. :hmm:

 

[IronWing]

We'll always need Bruce Willis.

 

[Saint Nick]

Effectiveness of a nuke would depend upon too many variables to give even a SWAG (Scientific Wild Ass Guess) answer.

1. velocity of asteroid? fast moving makes a much more difficult target
2. material it's made of? silicone based will break up easier than iron based
3. yield of the nuke? remember, most ICBM's are tipped with MIRV's, multiple independent re-entry vehicles. In other words, multiple smaller nukes, versus one humungous Tsar Bomba style 50 megaton yield warhead.
4. proximity fuse, or penetrating tip? (i.e.-bunker buster) Proximity would be an easier "hit", but would likely be less effective at breaking it up. Penetration would be much more difficult, but would concentrate more of the blast inward, for a more likely break-up of the rock.

This is just what I came up with, off the cuff. I'm sure that there are many more variables that would make a difference too. :hmm:

HOw about multiple tsar bomba...thats the ticket

 

[nehalem256]

I believe a nuclear bomb can do serious damage up to 10 miles in diameter. That is just blast strength. I would assume one would break it up pretty well. However, the pieces it creates could still do some decent damage.

My understanding that the a lot of the damage from a nuclear bomb comes from it going off in the atmosphere and that the blast damage comes from the air moving away from the detonation.

As there is no atmosphere near the asteroid the damage would be significantly less.

This is why the had to drill into and blow it from the inside in the movie.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Top 10 ways to stop an asteroid (from hitting earth)

And only last month was Apophis ruled out for a chance to hit us in 2040ish. The pic from the article cracked me up.

 

[DesiPower]

maybe god, our creator (ID/ancient alien theory) is sending us these practice shots to prepare us for the real thing coming to us soon and all we are doing is facebooking about it...

 

[GagHalfrunt]

maybe god, our creator (ID/ancient alien theory) is sending us these practice shots to prepare us for the real thing coming to us soon and all we are doing is facebooking about it...

If there was a god or benevolent alien culture that cared about things down here there wouldn't be a Facebook in the first place.

 

[DesiPower]

If there was a god or benevolent alien culture that cared about things down here there wouldn't be a Facebook in the first place.

They might care about the colony they established but not the day to day life. They themselves might be too far away to do something about it themselves or might be taken over by republicans who cut all funding to such worthless projects and the privately funded team can only send signals and such but cant actually come here anymore...

 

[GagHalfrunt]

They might care about the colony they established but not the day to day life. They themselves might be too far away to do something about it themselves or might be taken over by republicans who cut all funding to such worthless projects and the privately funded team can only send signals and such but cant actually come here anymore...

Then the first signal would be: "Yo! Assholes!!! Get off Facebook or we're going to wipe out your planet with a giant asteroid to improve the gene pool of the universe".

 

[DesiPower]

Then the first signal would be: "Yo! Assholes!!! Get off Facebook or we're going to wipe out your planet with a giant asteroid to improve the gene pool of the universe".

Exactly, maybe that's what they are saying, by sending the smaller ones, maybe they cannot communicate with us directly anymore...

 

[notposting]

No matter how much notice we had, a asteroid 6 miles in length landing anywhere on the planet would wipe us out. Approx one hundred trillion tons of dirt and rock would be hurled into the atmosphere and entomb the earth in a dark, cold hell. Odds are it would land in the ocean, causing massive global tsunami's.

No amount of nukes could stop it, we would actually make it worse by breaking it up into multiple objects instead of just one.

How could it be worse than the single large one?

We don't have the ability to stop this. Imagine 10-20 thousand nuclear weapons all going off at once. The best we could do would to push it off course, but then it may smash into the moon or the sun.

Even if DA14 hit California for example which is the length of 3 tractor trailers, would wipe out most of the state and cause massive earthquakes.

How can this be arranged? :hmm:We'll have to get Boomer out of there...but that's probably about it

 

[IronWing]

Even if DA14 hit California for example which is the length of 3 tractor trailers, would wipe out most of the state and cause massive earthquakes.

California is a bit bigger than that, it just seems that small because there are always three tractor trailers blocking your view.

 

[amdhunter]

If it were 6 miles wide, I'd imagine it will be almost as deep. A nuke would probably manage to change it's trajectory a little bit, but I don't really think it will do more than create a crater on it.

If it's made of anything harder than rock, probably even less damage.

 

[Cheesemoo]

We'll always need Bruce Willis.

California is a bit bigger than that, it just seems that small because there are always three tractor trailers blocking your view.

You just won the thread....

 

[ichy]

I believe a nuclear bomb can do serious damage up to 10 miles in diameter. That is just blast strength. I would assume one would break it up pretty well. However, the pieces it creates could still do some decent damage.

Breaking it into pieces is the last thing you'd want to do. The goal would be to alter its course.

 

[SSSnail]

We just need to ban asteroids.